The global study of AMBA-accredited programs revealed a net growth of 5% in the number of applications during 2014-2015. In the four years prior to 2014, application numbers had declined by 14%.

The Association of MBAs (AMBA) is a global MBA-focused accreditation organization and worldwide MBA alumni club, founded in London in 1967. It accredits around 2% of the world’s business schools. All MBA students and alumni of the accredited schools join AMBA as individual members free of charge.

AMBA has granted accreditation to 210 business schools worldwide with the majority of 79 schools located in Europe followed by 43 in the United Kingdom (UK) and 35 each in Asia and Latin America & the Caribbean. The accreditation that upholds the highest standards of MBA programs is much valued among the students, the institutions and the recruiters.

The report, based on data provided by 92% of AMBA-accredited institutions, measured schools’ intake and graduation figures for 2015, including submissions from 218 schools across six continents. It represented a record number of participating schools.

Though Africa and Oceania saw an increase in enrolments between 2011-15 of 4% and 21% respectively, in other regions, it remained relatively static with an overall 13% drop between 2011-15.

Meanwhile AMBA chief executive Andrew Main Wilson, talking to Times Higher Education (THE), says that the increase in applications proves that high quality postgraduate management education was desirable in a world that was becoming more competitive, global and uncertain.

In the face of global competition, the need to be a more professional manager is being felt. Thus, it becomes necessary for people to pursue the best possible business education they could afford. They are also realising that there is no point in waiting two or three years to see if the economic climate might be more favourable.

He points out that the difficulties in procuring Visa to study in the UK were driving MBA aspirants to destinations like Australia and New Zealand that has seen a large influx of Asian students. The advantage in taking up a full-time MBA in Australia is being automatically granted a work permit for a limited period after completing the degree.

The increased demand for MBAs also means that schools have to evolve, especially in imparting the softer skills needed in the market place that are more difficult to teach. Softer leadership and communication skills are the ones that employers would like to see polished to the same standard as the classic MBA taught skills, he says.(Image Source: Wikipedia.org)

The other programmes accorded AMBA recognition are the 2-Year Post-Graduate Programme in Management (both at Indore and Mumbai) which have been accredited as a pre-experience Masters in Management Course, and the 5-Year Integrated Programme in Management (IPM, 4th and 5th Year). We are yet to confirm which category the IPM course has been accredited under. 

AMBA recognises only those programs that require participants to have prior work experience as MBA. Thus, all others including the two-year Post Graduate Programs (PGP) offered by the IIMs and others that have fresh graduates without mandatory work exposure are classified under MIM (Masters in Management).

Fourth IIM to Get AMBA Accreditation

IIM Indore is now among the few B-Schools accredited by AMBA in India, and the 4th IIM receiving this prestigious accreditation. The other IIMs with AMBA accreditation are IIM Kozhikode, IIM Lucknow and IIM Calcutta.

AMBA accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement in postgraduate business education and is earned only by the best programs. It gives business schools international credibility and status.

Since its inception in 1967, AMBA has accredited MBA, DBA and MBM programmes at over 200 B-schools in more than 70 different countries. The association accredits just one percent of the world’s MBA offering B-schools.

Within a short span of 20 years, IIM Indore has become India’s largest IIM in terms of students. It is also the only IIM to offer a five year integrated programme in management, and Post Graduate Programme and weekend Post Graduate Programme for Working Executives in Mumbai. It also became the first IIM to offer a doctoral programme in Management for working professionals.

Director’s Comments

The Institute Director Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan congratulated the faculty, staff, students, alumni and other stakeholders of IIM Indore while announcing the AMA accreditation.

“One of our key objectives is to maintain world-class academic standards and international accreditation is an important affirmation of this achievement. Going forward, IIM Indore hopes to build on the strengths we have already demonstrated,” he said in a video message.

“Going forward, IIM Indore hopes to build on the strengths we have already demonstrated. We have the largest number of students across all IIMs, more than 1600 students on our campus. In addition, we also run the widest portfolios of management programmes,” he added.

“We hope to enhance our research output and we are known for knowledge creation in the world of management education. We also want to ensure that our programmes are up-to-date and are among the best academic programmes in the world.

“Increasingly, we want to focus on entrepreneurship and we plan to start a separate entrepreneurship consortium for PGP programme. All of these will help IIM Indore cement its place as one of the leading management institutions in India,” Prof. Krishnan said.

Any mention of the different accreditations awarded to the institute’s courses and the significance of this was missing from IIM’s statement.

Other 1-year Programs with Full Time MBA Accreditation By AMBA

IIM, Lucknow’s International Programme in Management for Executives (IPMX), SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR)’s Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) are the other  1-year MBA programs in India to get Full-Time MBA accreditation by AMBA.

The other business schools with AMBA Accreditation in India are International Management Institute (IMI), Management Development Institute (MDI), SP Jain Institute of Management Research (SPJIMR) and SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).

Global B-schools accredited by AMBA include ESCP Europe Business School, Ashridge Business School (Hertfordshire, UK), Mannheim Business School (Manheim, Germany), Imperial College Business School (London, United Kingdom), Leeds University Business School (London, UK) and Reims Management School (Reims, France).

Maggi’s slogan – ‘Taste Bhi, Health Bhi’ (both taste and health) has led generations of Indian mothers to believe that they are providing their children a nutritious meal by serving them a bowl of instant noodles.

Much the same way, B-Schools in India have had parents feeding a so called Masters in Business Administration (MBA) to their children right after graduation, giving them the wrong impression that they are giving their child a world-class education. 

Just as in the case of Maggi, the reality is quite different.

As we have shared often with our readers, an MBA is a post-experience degree and can not be pursued by fresh graduates. The degree Indian B-Schools are providing their pre-experience class is in reality a Masters in Business Management (MBM) and not an MBA. 

This misrepresentation is no isolated case – thanks to sub-standard local accreditation norms and a lax enforcement framework, even the best B-Schools in India are guilty of misleading students and preying on the unquestioning faith of Indian students in these institutions. 

What students and their parents fail to understand is that educational institutes are businesses too and are driven equally by the pursuit of ‘Lakshmi’ (Indian goddess of wealth) as ‘Saraswati’ (Indian goddess of learning).

We capture below a few glaring cases of mislabeling by B-Schools in India to help you become a smarter consumer of business education:

1. Mislabeling two-year PGP/ PGDM courses as MBA, despite these courses having failed to meet global standards for an MBA course 

While the Association of Universities (AIU) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), two Indian regulatory bodies, award ‘MBA equivalent’ status to two-year PGP/ PGDM courses offered by IIMs, top global B-School accreditation body AMBA, accredits these very same courses as pre-experience Masters in Business Management (MBM) worldwide.

AMBA’s accreditation standards are clear: an MBA course must admit students with 3+ years of work experience while an MBM can admit candidates with 0-3 years work experience. So students with less than 3 years of work experience are eligible to pursue an MBM, not an MBA. Since the two-year PGP/ PGDM courses in India largely recruit freshers (most admits have less than a year of work experience and many have zero work experience), these courses are accredited by AMBA as MBMs.

This stipulation is meant to ensure that an MBA course delivers on its stated goal of preparing mid-career professionals for leadership roles.

IIM Lucknow (IIM L) and IIM Calcutta are two top B-Schools who have received Full Time MBA accreditation from AMBA, exclusively for their One Year MBA courses. But have a look at IIM L’s webpage below that talks about AMBA accreditation. Can you tell by looking at this page that the two-year PGP course is not accredited as an MBA and that only the one-year course (IPMX) has got full time MBA status?

IIM L pulls a fast one on students by simply dropping the details of accreditation their courses have received in order to imply that all its courses have achieved the same standard. But unlike EQUIS and AACSB which certify the overall quality of a B-School, AMBA accredits specific courses.  

IIM Luckcnow hides the fact that its One Year MBA is accredited as a Full Time MBA and its two-year course as an MBM by AMBA

IIM L is a government institute, established to develop and lead the field of management education in India – it is scary when it chooses instead to distort facts.

Earlier this month when Xaviers School of Management (XLRI) got AMBA accreditation, they similarly played with semantics while speaking to the press about the development and failed to mention that only their one-year course has got full time MBA accreditation from AMBA. When we contacted them, they shirked the responsibility of communicating and clarifying these details and told us that students can visit the website and check details of accreditation there.

A quick check on AMBA’s website reveals the facts

By not sharing the exact accreditation awarded to their courses, B-Schools are insulating their their long running two-year courses from an adverse impact while at the same time claiming to live up to global standards. 

Clarifying that the two-year PGP/ PGDM programmes are MBMs and not MBAs could kill the demand for these programmes. Since students need no work experience to apply to these programmes, lakhs of fresh graduates apply to these programmes every year thinking they are getting an MBA.  

Pre-experience PGP/ PGDM courses are lucrative for B-Schools for other reasons too: 

A. Cheaper to run: While PGP/ PGDM students need to be taught fundamentals in business, with work-experience ranging between 5-17 years work ex, One Year MBA students know most of these concepts already and need to be taught advanced concepts that will prepare them for leadership roles. B-School need to hire faculty with richer work experience in order to teach the One Year MBA students, which increases costs.

B. Finding entry level jobs for two-year PGP/ PGDM takes less effort: In 2013, while IIM A’s One Year MBA (PGPX) grads were placed at an average salary of Rs 27 lakh in senior roles, the school’s PGP grads were placed at an average salary of Rs 17.73 lakh in junior roles. Placing students in middle to senior roles (as any MBA outside India does) requires B-Schools to change their approach to placements. Most don’t want to invest time, money and effort in marketing One Year MBA grads, for whom the customer is often the CEO of a company instead of middle level HR managers that B-Schools have been talking to all these years.

2. Mislabeling the One Year MBA as an Executive MBA 

IIM Lucknow’s website introduces the school’s globally accredited Full Time MBA – the One Year Full Time MBA (IPMX) as an Executive MBA (a part-time course for working professionals). Check the image below: 

IIM L misrepresents its globally accredited MBA as an Executive MBA

The use of the word ‘executive’ in the branding of the one-year MBA in India is wide-spread and most B-Schools use some combination of ‘MBA’ and ‘Executive’ for the branding of their post-experience MBA.

Why are Indian B-School’s creating the impression that their one-year MBA is an Executive MBA?

Well, pretty much for the same reasons B-Schools want to maintain the perception that their two-year PGP/ PGDM courses are MBAs. B-Schools want to avoid adversely affecting their top selling pre-experience course which is established as an MBA in popular perception.

Academicians we talked to told us on the condition of anonymity that its all about profits at some B-Schools, and about maintaining the status-quo at others.

Speaking in the context of IIMs, one Professor told us, “There is a mindset problem at IIMs – they are protective about their longer running two-year course and don’t understand that the One Year MBA is actually a stronger course to represent them going forward. Given the course’s global MBA accreditation, ability to represent IIMs on global rankings, better placements and intake of mature participants the One Year Course is the ideal flagship course.”   

3. Hiding that the two-year PGP course at IIMs fails to get ranked on the prestigious Financial Times MBA ranking 

At IIM A’s 47th Convocation in 2012, IIM A’s director Samir K Barua said, “The ranking of the PGP by FT, for the year 2011, improved to 7 among comparable programmes globally. This is the only programme from India that figures in the list of programmes ranked by FT”

Why is IIM A using vague language? Why is it not clearly communicating to all and sundry which ranking the PGP programme has been ranked in or what these ‘comparable programmes’ are?

IIM A has projected its PGP course as an MBA, and the vague language would have given parents, students and the media the impression that the PGP course has been ranked as an MBA along with other MBA programmes. But that is not what happened – as a pre-experience MBM programme, the PGP was ranked by FT in the MBM Ranking and not the MBA ranking. 

The Association of MBAs (AMBA) is the international impartial authority on postgraduate business education, established in 1967. AMBA’s accreditation service is the global standard for all MBA, Doctoral and MBM programmes in more than 110 countries. 

As per AMBA’s accreditation standards, an MBA course must admit students with 3+ years of work experience while an MBM can admit candidates with 0-3 years work experience. So students with less than 3 years of work experience are eligible to pursue an MBM only, not an MBA. 

While it is impressive that XLRI’s courses have got AMBA accreditation, what is not, is the attempt to gloss over the fact that it is only the One Year MBA at XLRI (PGDM-GM) which has received Full Time MBA accreditation from AMBA.

Those not familiar with the myriad B-School accreditation possibilities can find the nuances confusing.  While some accreditations (e.g. EQUIS and AACSB) are given to an institute as a whole, the AMBA is not. It is given only to a specific course. 

The Economic Times dated May 13, 2015 quoted Fr. E. Abraham S.J. director, XLRI as saying, “We are extremely happy to announce that our MBA and MBM provision has been awarded accreditation by AMBA’s International Accreditation Advisory Board. XLRI with its singular philosophy of Magis, i.e., pursuit of excellence in all endeavors, has continually focused on three inter-related areas: academic excellence, personal values and societal concern.”

It would be hard for any student or recruiter to decode this statement and understand that the two-year PGDM(BM) course has got MBM accreditation and the One Year Course has got MBA accreditation.  

To get clarity on the statement we got in touch with XLRI’s Chief Brand & Sustainability Officer Sunil Varughese. We asked which course at XLRI has been accredited as an MBA by AMBA? He replied, “All our courses have been accredited by AMBA”.

This is how the interview proceeded:

OneYearMBA.co.in (OYMBA): But AMBA accredits courses and not B-Schools and it awards MBA and MBM accreditation to specific courses. Which course at XLRI has been accredited as MBA and which as an MBM?
Sunil Vurughese (SV): Yes…so our two-year PGDM (BM) and two-year PGDM-HRM have been accredited as MBMs and One Year PGDM-GM and PGDM Part Time have been accredited as MBAs.

OYMBA: So the PGDM-GM, the One Year MBA has got Full Time MBA accreditation and the part-time PGDM a part-time MBA accreditation?
SV: Yes.

OneYearMBA.co.in (OYMBA): Will the global MBA accreditation for the One Year Course and global MBM accreditation for the two year course impact the positioning for your courses – will the two-year course now be positioned as an MBM and the One Year Course as an MBA?
Sunil Varughese (SV): Not necessarily. This is only for AMBA. In Indian market this won’t impact. Historically mostly freshers apply to two-year course so the two-year course will continue to remain an MBA in Indian market.

OYMBA: In that case why apply for AMBA accreditation?
SV: Foreign students look at it differently – with AMBA they will consider coming to India.

OYMBA: But don’t Indian students deserve to know the differences between the two courses? Shouldn’t they know which course is an MBA and which an MBM as per global accreditation?
SV: It will take time. The One Year MBA is a new product and market will take time to appreciate the difference of the talent coming from this course.

OYMBA: But are institutes doing enough on their part to clarify the differences to students and recruiters?
SV: Onus is on students. Students should check the websites. We will put up AMBA accreditation there. Due diligence has to be done by students. Recruiters can also judge the difference and are smart enough to see the difference between an experienced graduate and a fresher. We need to give the market more time. From our end, we have made the One Year MBA (PGDM-GM) a flagship course and are doing our best to clarify differences in one-on-one meetings with recruiters. Infact as opposed to IIMs, where placements are left to students, we have hired two placement officers for the One Year course.

OYMBA: But do you see a problem from a marketing perspective when two entirely different products, an MBA and an MBM, are both branded and positioned as MBAs? Most recruiters hire on the basis of set requirements. If the requirement is for an MBA, recruiters perceive anyone with the qualification as equally capable. With the vastly higher pay packages for One Year MBA grads vs the salary for hiring a fresher, the choice then often comes down to salary instead. Isn’t that a problem?
SV: The onus of clarifying the difference between MBA and MBM and following it in our nomenclatures has to be borne by all institutes. We alone can’t change everything – all institutes have to work together.

So is XLRI saying that only foreign students should benefit from pursuing an MBA that meets global standards? Are Indian students second class citizens who don’t deserve the best quality education? This smacks of a colonial mindset and borders on segregation and racism.  

During colonial rule, thousands of Indians lost their lives demanding freedom from segregation. It is ironical that Indian students are receiving step-motherly treatment in independent India. 

Their lives and careers hang in critical balance. With high fees ranging between Rs 16-25 lakh for the One Year MBA and zero effort to clearly market the One Year MBA and Two-Year MBM as two distinct offerings, B-Schools in India are playing with the careers of their alumni. Many of these students are middle class and have saved their salary over many years to pursue the MBA course – this apathy is sufficient to wreck lives. (Image courtesy shienelopez)